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South Asia Investor Review is focused on reporting, analyzing and discussing the economy and the financial markets of countries in South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. For investors looking to invest in emerging markets beyond BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), this blog is designed to help international investors looking to learn about investing in South Asia with focus on Pakistan. Riaz has another blog called Haq's Musings at http://www.riazhaq.com

Trump's Afghan Strategy: Will Pakistan Yield to US Pressure?

Announcing the new US strategy on Afghanistan this week, President Donald Trump singled out "valued partner" Pakistan for increased American pressure to act against "agents of chaos" such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network who attack American service members and officials. Trump said this "will have to change, and that will change immediately." He also sought India's help in Afghanistan while ignoring the increased Iranian and Russian involvement in helping the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan's Response to US Pressure:

Will Trump's pressure on Pakistan work? Will Pakistanis do the bidding of the new US administration? To answer this question, let us look at the following two quotes:

1. "The Pakistani establishment, as we saw in 1998 with the nuclear test, does not view assistance -- even sizable assistance to their own entities -- as a trade-off for national security vis-a-vis India". US Ambassador Anne Patterson, September 23, 2009

Pakistan is much less reliant on US assistance now than it was when the above statements were made. If anything, the Trump administration has less leverage with Pakistan today than its predecessors did back in 1990s and 2000s.

Iran and Russia in Afghanistan:

While Trump is singling out Pakistan as the main culprit for US failures in Afghanistan, the ground reality has substantially changed with the emergence of ISIS and increased Iranian and Russian involvement in helping the Afghan Taliban. Both see the Afghan Taliban as allies in fighting their common enemy ISIS in Afghanistan.

Russia's Ambassador at large for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov has described the Afghan Taliban as a “predominantly a national military-political movement”. “It is local, Afghanistan-based. They believe that they should have, from their perspective, fair share in the government of Afghanistan…They should talk and deal in their local context”. But Daesh (ISIS) “as an international organization is really dangerous”. “If you recall, young Taliban under the influence of Al-Qaeda in 1994, their rhetoric was very similar to today’s Daesh rhetoric”.

Mr. Kabulov's comments reveal the following conclusions that underpin the Russian policy shift in South Asia region:

1. Moscow now believes that the presence of ISIS (Daesh) in Afghanistan is a much bigger threat to Russia's soft underbelly in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

2. The Afghan Taliban are an effective force to check the growth and spread of ISIS in Central and South Asian nations.

3. Pakistan's cooperation is critical to help defeat ISIS in the region.

India's Proxy War Against Pakistan:

President Trump's Afghan strategy of partnering with India will further alienate Pakistan and make its cooperation with US less likely. Why? Because Pakistan believes that India is using Afghanistan to attack Pakistan, an allegation confirmed as fact by former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who said in 2011 that "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".

Pakistan's fears about India waging proxy war in Pakistan via Afghanistan are further reinforced by a 2013 speech by India's current National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in which he talked about about "Pakistan's vulnerabilities" to terrorism and India's ability to take advantage of it. Here are some excerpts of his speech at Sastra University:"How do you tackle Pakistan?.....We start working on Pakistan's vulnerabilities-- economic, internal security, political, isolating them internationally, it can be anything..... it can be defeating Pakistan's policies in Afghanistan...... You stop the terrorists by denying them weapons, funds and manpower. Deny them funds by countering with one-and-a-half times more funding. If they have 1200 crores give them 1800 crores and they are on our side...who are the Taliban fighting for? It's because they haven't got jobs or someone has misled them. The Taliban are mercenaries. So go for more of the covert thing (against Pakistan)..." Ajit Doval, India's National Security Advisor

Pakistan's Support of the Afghan Taliban:

General David Petraeus, former CIA director and commander of US troops in Afghanistan, has said there is no evidence of Pakistan playing a double game and supporting terrorists in Afghanistan. He was answering a question posed to him at a presentation at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British security think tank based in London.

Here's part of Gen Petraeus' response: "I looked very very hard then (as US commander in Afghanistan) and again as CIA director at the nature of the relationship between the various (militant) groups in FATA and Baluchistan and the Pakistan Army and the ISI and I was never convinced of what certain journalists have alleged (about ISI support of militant groups in FATA).... I have talked to them (journalists) asked them what their sources are and I have not been able to come to grips with that based on what I know from these different positions (as US commander and CIA director)".

Gen Petraeus did acknowledge that "there's communication between the ISI and various militant groups in FATA and Balochistan (Haqqanis, Taliban, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, etc) but some of it you'd do anyway as an intelligence service." He added that "there may be some degree of accommodation that is forced on them (Pakistanis) because of the limits of their (Pakistan's) forces."

The Way Forward:

A hasty US exit from Afghanistan is not imminent. The United States needs Pakistan to help stabilize Afghanistan. But how can this be achieved? Can increased US pressure on Pakistan elicit cooperation? Can US partnership with India do the trick? In my view, neither will work. What will work is an understanding of Pakistan's legitimate concerns in Afghanistan.

What are Pakistan's legitimate interests in Afghanistan? The answer is: Pakistan's national security interest in stopping the use of the Afghan territory to launch attacks against it. Any solution to the Afghan problem has to include firm guarantees that India or any other country will be denied the use of Afghan territory and various militant groups to destabilize Pakistan.

The US must understand there can be no stability in Afghanistan if Pakistan feels insecure. The US also needs to acknowledge that an unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan will pose a far bigger threat than any threat emanating from Afghanistan.

Summary:

Trump's new Afghan strategy of increasing troop levels and ratcheting up the pressure on Pakistan will not work as long as Pakistan sees its vital national security interests threatened by India's proxy war being waged against it from the Afghan soil. Any solution to the Afghan problem must be regional. It has to include firm guarantees that India or any other country will be denied the use of Afghan territory to destabilize Pakistan. The US must understand there can be no stability in Afghanistan if Pakistan feels insecure. The US also needs to acknowledge that an unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan will pose a far bigger threat than any threat emanating from Afghanistan.

Comments

Early last year, the Pakistani government sent USAID officials in Islamabad a mystifying letter via snail mail: please stop doing feasibility studies for Diamer Basha Dam

------------When USAID got the letter in 2016, they suspected that Pakistan had found funding with the Chinese. They were right.

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In May 2017 Pakistan and China signed a $50 billion agreement that included full funding for Diamer Basha and four other dams.

Although enormous, the new agreement hardly merited coverage in Pakistan. China already captured headlines and public imagination in 2013 when the two countries signed memorandums of understanding worth $46 billion to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. CPEC has since quietly grown to a $62 billion investment.

The latest $50 billion in memorandums now brings Chinese loans and investments in Pakistan to well over $100 billion. A senior member of the CPEC team at Pakistan’s Ministry for Planning, Development, and Reform predicts that figure will ultimately grow to $150 billion. If the dams face cost overruns — which are 96 percent on average — then that will be a conservative estimate.

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roads and rail are actually a small part of Chinese money in Pakistan — less than $11 billion of the original $46 billion agreement. It’s small because, contrary to popular perceptions, much of the CPEC route is actually financed by Pakistan.

“Much of the roads being built are being built by our money,” says Miftah Ismail, who was Pakistan’s minister for investment until late last month, when the cabinet was dissolved because the Supreme Court voted to remove the prime minister on grounds of corruption.

What Ismail estimates Pakistan will take on in Chinese projects this year — $4 billion in loans and investments — equals what the Pakistani federal and provincial governments have allocated for roads and highways in their own annual budgets.

China is also financing the expansion and improvement of Pakistan’s neglected railway system, doubling its speed from 60 to 120 kilometers per hour.

CPEC roads will connect landlocked Xinjiang province in western China through a new port city that it is building on Pakistan’s coast, Gwadar. China needs these roads to transport goods out, but it is hard to think of what will go in the other direction. China’s exports to Pakistan account for two-thirds of Pakistan’s trade deficit.

Pakistan on Thursday responded to Washington's accusation that it shelters the Afghan Taliban by saying the U.S. military itself is failing to eliminate militant sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.

The rare reaction came in a policy statement issued by the office of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi after a meeting of the civilian and military leadership.

President Donald Trump has accused Pakistan of harbouring "agents of chaos" and providing safe havens to militant groups waging an insurgency against a U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Islamabad, he said, must quickly change tack.

Pakistan, however, saw things differently.

"We would like to see effective and immediate U.S. military efforts to eliminate sanctuaries harbouring terrorists and miscreants on Afghan soil, including those responsible for fomenting terror in Pakistan," the Prime Minister's office said in a statement, one of the strongest ever responses to Washington. The Afghan war cannot be fought in Pakistan, it said.

The statement referred not only to the Afghan Taliban, but also the loosely affiliated Pakistani Taliban that Islamabad contends uses sanctuaries inside Afghanistan to plan attacks on Pakistani soil.

White House officials have threatened cuts in aid and military support, as well as other measures to force nuclear-armed Pakistan's hand and bring about an end to the 16-year-war.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said Washington should not use Pakistan as a "scapegoat" for its failures in America's longest running war. Pakistan denies harbouring militants.

The military, which has ruled the country for over half its 70-year history, calls the shots on key parts of Pakistan's foreign policy, including ties with the United States, Afghanistan and arch-foe India.

The prime minister's office said Washington's claims it had paid billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan were misleading.

Payments to Pakistan since 2001 accounted for only part of the cost of ground facilities and air corridors used by the U.S. for operations in Afghanistan, it said.

Pakistani officials bristle at what they say is a lack of respect by Washington for the country's sacrifices in the war against militancy and its successes against groups like al Qaeda, Islamic State or the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan estimates there have been 70,000 casualties in militant attacks, including 17,000 killed, since it joined the U.S. "war on terrorism" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"We feel the American administration led by Mr Trump has been totally one sided, unfair to Pakistan and does not appreciate and recognise Pakistan has been a pivotal player," Senator Mushahid Hussain, chairman of the senate defence committee, told Reuters on Thursday.

Some analysts have suggested putting greater pressure on Pakistan risks driving Islamabad deeper into the arms of China, its northern neighbour which is investing nearly $60 billion in infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road initiative.

China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone call the United States must value Pakistan's role in Afghanistan and respect its security concerns, according to Chinese state media. [nL4N1LA1NW]

The relationship between the two countries has endured periods of extreme strain in recent years, especially after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in a 2011 raid.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy for the nation’s longest-running war in Afghanistan will meet the same fate as the plans of his predecessors, according to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Failure.

“From day one we have been saying very clearly the military strategy in Afghanistan has not worked and it will not work,” Abbasi, who took over as premier three weeks ago, said in an interview Saturday night in Karachi. There has to be a “political settlement,” he added. “That’s the bottom-line.”

Abbasi said while his government supports the fight against terrorists it won’t let the war in neighboring Afghanistan -- the countries share a 2,500-kilometer (1,550 miles) border -- spill into Pakistan.

The stance of Abassi’s administration may complicate Trump’s plan for the region after he pledged more U.S. troops for Afghanistan and called on Pakistan to stop providing a safe haven for terrorists.

Failure by Trump to resolve the Afghan war risks even greater financial and human cost for the U.S., could leave it bogged down further in the conflict, and may become a further sore point for ties with China and Pakistan, with Trump already chiding Beijing for not doing enough to stop the turmoil. The war has cost the U.S. about $714 billion and several thousand lives.

Afghanistan’s government is slowly losing its hold over the country with the Taliban now controlling about 40 percent of the country, which U.S. officials say couldn’t have been possible without help from Pakistan’s military. That’s a charge the Asian nation disputes.

“This is a classic dialogue of the deaf between Washington and Islamabad because neither agrees on what needs to be pursued but both make a sham of going together,” said Burzine Waghmar, a member of the Centre for the Study of Pakistan at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “U.S. priorities are not the same as Pakistan,” which wants Afghanistan to stay dependent on it, he said.

The U.S. in previous offensives in Afghanistan used drones to attack alleged terrorists in Pakistan. NATO troops have also used Pakistani ports and roads to move equipment into land-locked Afghanistan.

“We do not intend to allow anybody to fight Afghanistan’s battle on Pakistan’s soil,” Abbasi said during the interview at the former home of the nation’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, while he was on a visit to the nation’s commercial capital. “Whatever has to happen in Afghanistan should be happening in Afghanistan,” he said, adding Pakistan doesn’t harbor terrorists.

China’s Role

Abbasi was picked by the ruling party as prime minister this month after the nation’s top court disqualified predecessor Nawaz Sharif in July.

Support and investment from China will help Pakistan defy the U.S.

China, which is seeking to build its economic and strategic clout in South Asia, has more than $50 billion in planned infrastructure projects in Pakistan. With China’s role increasing, Pakistan’s forces have fewer incentives to stop covertly supporting insurgent groups that strike inside Afghanistan and India, while targeting outfits that threaten its own domestic security, according to analysts.

Pakistan’s military has been conducting its own offensive against terrorists with the latest operation in the Khyber tribal region starting last month after Islamic State’s presence increased across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army earlier said it had cleared North Waziristan on the Afghanistan border, a region the U.S. has called an “epicenter” of terrorism.

Pakistan postponed a visit by a U.S. acting Assistant Secretary of State, officials said, as small protests broke out against President Donald Trump’s accusations that Islamabad was prolonging the war in Afghanistan.

The visit of Alice Wells, acting assistant Secretary of State for South and Asian Affairs, scheduled for Monday, would have been the first high-profile visit by a U.S. official since Trump’s Afghan policy speech on Aug. 21.

“At the request of the Government of Pakistan, Acting Assistant Secretary Wells’ trip has been postponed until a mutually convenient time,” a U.S. Embassy spokesperson told Reuters in Islamabad on Sunday.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry released a statement with similar wording.

Neither side gave a reason for the postponement, but U.S. officials working in Pakistan have been on high-alert since Monday’s speech. Trump accused Pakistan of harboring “agents of chaos” and providing safe havens to militant groups waging an insurgency against a U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

Pakistani officials responded by saying the U.S. should not “scapegoat” Pakistan and accused the American military of failing to eliminate militant sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.

In the southern metropolis of Karachi, police fired teargas at protesters from a religious student group as they began moving toward the U.S. consulate building.

Between 100 and 150 protesters carrying placards bearing pictures of President Trump and chanting anti-U.S. slogans were kept at bay by police and not allowed within 3 km (2 miles) of the consulate.

On Friday, banned Islamist organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa, held responsible by Washington and New Delhi for a series of coordinated attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, staged nationwide protests but also failed to draw large numbers.

As a result, if Pakistan comes under real pressure, China will probably be willing to extend forms of economic support and political protection it would previously have balked at. A version of this already played out in 2015, when Pakistan was being pushed by the Saudis and the UAE to play a significant role in the military campaign in Yemen. Chinese economic reassurances helped Pakistan to resist the entreaties and financial threats. China has also given stronger political cover to Pakistan in international forums.

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At the lowest ebb of the last annus horribilis for US-Pakistan ties in 2011, soon after the special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan brandished the China card: if relations with Washington were going into a tailspin, Islamabad would turn to Beijing instead. They were rebuffed. China discreetly made it clear to both the United States and Pakistan that the “all-weather friendship” was already as deep as they wanted it to be and that Islamabad needed to focus on fixing its relations with Washington.

With President Donald Trump’s announcement that the new US South Asia strategy will involve tightening the screws on Pakistan if it doesn’t address militant safe havens within its borders, the early indications are that the China card will be played again. This time, however, Pakistan may have more luck. The relationship with Beijing is in a very different place now and while China will take its usual care not to get caught in the middle, it is likely to provide a stronger backdrop of support than it did the last time US-Pakistan tensions escalated.

Some things haven’t changed. While it might seem that Beijing would see any deterioration of Islamabad’s ties with Washington as an opportunity to exploit, China has long perceived greater advantage in a robust US-Pakistan relationship. Given Pakistan’s most important role for China has been as a counterbalance to India, it wants Islamabad to benefit from solid US economic and military support. Healthy ties with Washington are seen by Beijing to place implicit limits on the scope of US-India relations. They also ensure that Pakistan doesn’t turn into yet another point of tension in US-China relations or act as an impediment to Sino-Pakistani security ties.

---In addition to the fact that China’s once negligible economic interests in Pakistan have grown to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in investment, there is a political premium to making CPEC a success.

CPEC is also bound up in a deeper Chinese strategic commitment to Pakistan. As the People’s Liberation Army looks to expand its global power projection capabilities, it is strengthening ties with partners in areas ranging from naval cooperation to counterterrorism. In the last two years, the security relationship with Pakistani has been held up as a model to follow in this regard.

If Pakistan had a conscious policy of allowing a “haven for terrorists” in its territory, U.S. pressure might persuade the leadership to change it. Because the current situation reflects complicated domestic politics and any shift would probably result in pushback from the powerful military, the changes Washington wants are not likely to happen.

The United States has been putting pressure on Pakistan for decades, and neither tough words nor threats to cut off aid have worked for long. That suggests Pakistani leaders appear more afraid of a backlash from their society and military than they are of U.S. anger.

This does not bode well for the Trump administration’s new Afghanistan strategy. Stabilizing Afghanistan will be much easier with a cooperative Pakistan, but that is unlikely to happen. Instead of making threats, U.S. policymakers would be better off working out whatever temporary arrangements they can with Pakistan, realizing the constraints of Pakistan’s leaders — and perhaps considering other options that do not rely on Pakistan.

Pakistan has called off three high-level meetings with Washington, as experts warn that President Donald Trump’s new Afghanistan policy risks driving Islamabad closer towards Beijing.

Alice Wells, acting assistant secretary of state, and Lisa Curtis, who serves on the National Security Council, were due to visit Pakistan this week as the US looks to explain its new position to the key players in the region.

But Islamabad has indefinitely postponed both meetings, as well as a planned trip to the US by its foreign minister Khawaja Asif, in response to Mr Trump’s announcement last week that he intends to keep US troops in Afghanistan and accusing Pakistan of harbouring terrorists.

On Monday morning the US state department was still saying that the Pakistan visit was part of Ms Curtis’s three-country tour of the region but later confirmed it had been cancelled.

“At the request of the government of Pakistan, that trip has been postponed until a mutually convenient time,” a state department spokesperson said.

Mr Trump had called on Pakistan to do more to tackle cross-border terrorism, saying the country had “sheltered the same organisations that try every single day to kill our people”.

Citing an erosion of trust, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said future US support for Pakistan would be conditional on the country adopting “a different approach”.

Their comments sparked immediate anger in Islamabad. Over the weekend, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the country’s interim prime minister, said in an interview: “From day one we have been saying very clearly the military strategy in Afghanistan has not worked and it will not work.”

But analysts also warn the US policy is likely to push Pakistan closer into the embrace of China, which is investing more than $50bn in its southern neighbour as part of its “One Belt, One Road” project to create a new silk road of trade routes across the world.

They point out that instead of going to the US, Mr Asif is travelling to China, Turkey and Russia.

One senior foreign ministry official in Islamabad told the Financial Times: “In this hour of need once again, we have China standing firmly with us as president Trump threatens to bring the Afghan war to Pakistan.”

The official added: “We have put further discussions on hold and need to decide first, exactly how the [US-Pakistan] relationship can proceed productively”.

Pakistan has proved an important ally to the US since the Cold War, when it helped support the mujahideen resistance against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

But since then, the relationship has wavered. Washington has been torn between relying on the Islamabad government to provide a bridgehead to Afghanistan and the wider region, and criticising it for failing to tackle domestic terrorism.

In recent years, Pakistan has allowed the US to use its territory as a supply route into Afghanistan and accepted increasingly frequent drone attacks by US forces.

---------------

An official at the central bank in Karachi said, China’s role “is going to be very useful to avert a [balance of payments] crisis if there is one”.

For Beijing, the relationship offers a faster route to the sea for goods from western China, a new area of business for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and an ally to support it in its fractious relationship with India.

Li Guofu, head of Middle Eastern research at the China Institute of International Studies, said: “Trump's new south Asia strategy, before it's been fully implemented, has already created a feeling of threat for Pakistan and aroused a strong negative response ... China has been actively trying to help the situation, and we are very concerned.”

But while Pakistan edges closer to China, analysts say it is unlikely to cut off ties completely with the US.

For the past 16 years, whenever the United States has been faced with the reality of a failing war in Afghanistan, it has blamed Pakistan. Efforts to bring freedom to the valleys of Afghanistan, this narrative claims, have been thwarted by a double-dealing “ally” that takes American aid while supporting its enemies.

The narrative inadvertently casts American presidents, generals, diplomats, spies and others who have been part of the war effort as credulous dupes and casts poor light on the American military, stuck in a quagmire despite having the world’s most advanced weapons and largest financial resources. It also assumes that Pakistan has a clear interest in harming both the United States and Afghanistan.

Those assumptions are wrong.

Pakistan joined President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism reluctantly but proved itself an effective ally in the fight against Al Qaeda and helped decimate its ranks. That contribution was sullied by Pakistan’s failure to locate Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States established a partnership with Pakistan over a decade and a half — handing out substantial amounts of aid, sophisticated weapons and the status of major non-NATO ally. Pakistan continues to require American military hardware, and middle-class Pakistani children continue to dream of attending American universities and of working on Wall Street. The United States is the biggest market for Pakistani exports, and Pakistani-Americans form its seventh-largest diaspora group.

China’s rising global status, and its explicit push for regional influence, has reduced Pakistan’s dependence on the United States, but the rumors of the demise of America’s importance in Pakistan are greatly exaggerated.

Despite these factors, neither the United States nor Pakistan has gained all that it would like from the relationship. Pakistan has not been able to convince the United States of the validity of its primary interest in Afghanistan — preventing it from becoming a “proxy for India” and stemming fears of “encirclement” in Pakistan despite India’s proclamations of merely offering economic assistance to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s leaders have recently taken to brazenly welcoming an ever-increasing Indian footprint in Kabul and beyond. Pakistani hawks used to be merely suspicious of collusion between the most anti-Pakistan Afghans and the Indian establishment. In the past two years, that suspicion has turned into conviction.

For its part, the United States has failed to convince Pakistan of the urgency of its primary interest in Afghanistan — shutting down the Haqqani network, the principal planner and executor of the most lethal terrorist attacks in Afghanistan over the past decade. Pakistanis have hemmed and hawed, offering up low-level Haqqani operatives and occasionally trimming the space available to them.

HUSAIN HAQQANI, Former Ambassador, Pakistan: Well, the two most important things that I saw in President Trump’s address were a removal of deadlines. That to me is very important, because the Taliban have had a saying for years that the Americans have watches and we have the time. When you set deadlines and show urgency about leaving Afghanistan, they really know they can wait you out, and so can the Pakistanis who support them.

So that I think is the change. It might actually be easier for the United States to get out of Afghanistan by saying, we do not intend to get out without doing what we really came here to do, which was to eliminate a terrorist safe haven.

The second thing I found interesting was that instead of offering a carrot to Pakistan, which has been the past practice, and a little bit of reprimanding Pakistan, there was a clear acknowledgment of the fact that Pakistan is not a good actor in Afghanistan.

It pains me to say that. I am a Pakistani. I served Pakistan as ambassador, but Pakistan has never been transparent about its attitude towards Afghanistan. And it has had an imaginary fear of India having a strong presence in Afghanistan.

President Trump has implied that he will invite India into Afghanistan, bringing Pakistan’s nightmare to reality. And that may have some effect in changing Pakistan’s calculus that several billion dollars in American assistance did not do.

---LAUREL MILLER, Former State Department Official: Over an extended of period, the U.S. has provided substantial support the Pakistan, primarily security related, but that’s been dwindling quite considerably over past years and is expected to dwindle further. And s a consequence, it’s not really a major point of leverage with the Pakistanis anymore. The U.S. is not providing billions of dollars any longer to Pakistan.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, that was incorrect to say billions —

LAUREL MILLER: If you calculate the amount that has been provided over a long stretch of time, it’s billions of dollars. But on an annual basis now, it’s nowhere near that. It’s well under a billion dollars a year. By contrast, the Chinese provide much, much greater levels of support to the Pakistanis. And so, it’s quite notable that the Chinese have come out today, giving a boost of support for the Pakistanis.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Ambassador Haqqani, is it really that serious leverage then? Because we hear Laurel Miller saying it’s not that much money.

HUSAIN HAQQANI: Well, with all due respect to Laurel, here are the facts: Pakistan has received $43 billion since 1954. Pakistan built its nuclear program while promising not to build it. A long track record, Pakistan offered bases in which return Pakistan was supposed to have been compensated way back in the ’50s and ’60s. Only provided an intelligence base, didn’t provide the air base that was promised.

The point is there is a pattern here. And that pattern is enabled by arguments like the one that, this is not as much money.

---

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me just stop you there.

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---LAUREL MILLER: There is some leverage. I mean, look, the border can’t be closed. It’s a very porous border. It’s very difficult territory.

So, the idea of literally closing the border is an impossibility. But certainly, there’s much more that the Pakistanis could do to close down the sanctuaries that Taliban leadership in particular enjoy in Pakistan.

But, you know, it’s not that there’s no leverage on the Pakistanis. But the Pakistanis are not going to change their perception of their own national security interests based only on American pressure. There has to be something that attracts the Pakistanis to cooperate in a positive way with the United States.

ISLAMABAD - The Senate Committee of the Whole House in its draft recommendations on the policy guidelines regarding post-Trump Afghan policy has proposed to the government to chalk out a “verifiable mechanism” to authenticate the allegations, both from Pakistan and Afghanistan, about cross-border terrorism.

Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif informed the committee on Monday that Pakistan had suspended talks and bilateral visits to the US as a protest following the tough remarks of US President Donald Trump against Pakistan while outlining his plan for Afghanistan and South Asia, sources told The Nation.

The special committee that held its in-camera meeting to finalise the draft proposals of the subcommittee, already formed by Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani for policy guidelines on the situation arising out of the US president’s plan on Afghanistan as well as his diatribe against Pakistan.

The foreign minister said that the Pakistan had taken the remarks of US president serious and added that US president’s policy on South Asia did not give any military role to India in Afghanistan. He was of the view that it was rather a role of economic development.

He said that the US thought that India’s increasing economic activities in Afghanistan would ultimately help bring economic stability in the region, the sources informed.

Asif also said that the US was not willing to accept Pakistan’s stance about India that the latter was involved in terrorist activities in Pakistan while using the soil of Afghanistan.

The lawmakers during the meeting sought the details of the Indian sponsored terrorism incidents in Pakistan - including the ones carried out by India’s serving naval officer and RAW spy Kulbushan Jhadev.

They also sought from the government a fact-sheet on US financial assistance received after 9/11, including the reimbursed amount of coalition support fund (CSF), and the financial loss incurred by the country while playing the role of a frontline state in the war on terrorism.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua informed the committee that a three-day meeting, commencing from September 5, of Pakistan’s envoys, had been summoned to finalise a strategy over the situation.

The Whole Committee would again meet today (Wednesday) as the lawmakers made some amendments in the draft of the policy guidelines and sent it back to the sub-committee. The sub-committee would present the final draft proposals today before the Whole Committee and the same would be adopted by the Upper House tomorrow (Wednesday) along with the passage of a resolution.

The National Assembly is also set to adopt a similar resolution on Wednesday after which resolutions and input of both the houses will be placed before the National Security Council (NSC) to chalk out a policy.

Senator Mushahid Hussain, a member of the subcommittee, gave a detailed briefing to the Committee of the Whole House and suggested the government to constitute a permanent Inter-Ministerial Task Force for an immediate response to any emergency situation vis-a-vis US policy shift.

Pakistan should use the Quadrilateral Counterterrorism Coordination Mechanism (QCCM) forum to neutralise the US concerns, he said. He also advised the government to give a regional response to the United States with the help of Turkey, Russia, and China.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed also appreciated formation of the committee, which was assigned to finalise a draft in four days but the task was accomplished within few hours.

He said the parliament was working as per the aspirations of the people on all the important issues confronting the country.

Senator Farhatullah Babar said both houses of parliament should adopt their own resolutions on the issue. “There is no harm if the National Assembly adopts the Senate resolution, but they should bring their own resolution,” he said. The foreign minister endorsed the idea.

The Pakistan Army Aviation Corps (PAAC) took delivery of four Russian-made Mi-35M attack helicopters, Pakistan’s Defense Export Promotion Organization (DEPO) confirmed in a statement issued at this year’s International Military-Technical Forum (Army 2017), which took place August 22-27 in Moscow, according to local media reports.

“The contract was signed, we received all four cars [Mi-35Ms] and now we get new equipment,” DEPOs Brigadier General Waheed Mumtaz told reporters in Moscow. PAAC are now getting acquainted with the new equipment. Based on the gunships’ performance a follow-up order for additional helicopters is under consideration, Mumtaz said. The general also noted that other Pakistani orders of Russian military equipment might take place depending on the Pakistani military’s experience with the helicopters.

Russia officially lifted an arms embargo against Pakistan, in place since the Soviet-Afghan War, in June 2014.

Pakistan and Russia agreed to the $153 million helicopter deal during then-Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif’s visit to Russia in June 2016. A preliminary contract was concluded at the Pakistan Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi in August 2015. Pakistan military sources indicate that PAAC could purchase a total of 20 Mi-35 helicopters in the coming years. “Given the cost of building the necessary Mi-35M logistics and maintenance infrastructure, expanding the fleet beyond four aircraft would financially be a sound decision for the Pakistani military,” I explained in December 2016. The Mi-25M is a formidable weapons platform, as I noted elsewhere (See: “Confirmed: Pakistan Is Buying New Attack Helicopters From Russia”):

The Mi-35M attack helicopter, the export version of the Mi-24 gunship, was developed by the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and has been produced in Russia since 2005. Next to serving in the Russian military, the aircraft has been exported to Azerbaijan, Brazil, Iraq, and Venezuela.

The company website of Russian Helicopters notes that the Mi-35 is particularly suited for mountainous terrain and can be deployed “round the clock” in adverse weather conditions. The website notes that the helicopter offers “combat use of guided and unguided weapons in regular and challenging climate conditions” and is “operational for attack flights at altitudes of 10-25 m daytime and 50 m at night over land or water.”

The helicopter can be deployed for a host of different missions, including transporting up to eight paratroopers and carrying military supplies weighing up to 1,500 kg internally and 2,400 kg externally.

It is unknown in what configuration the helicopters were delivered. The gunship is fitted with a mounted twin-barrel GSh-23V 23 millimeter cannon, and can also carry 80 and 120 millimeter rockets, as well as anti-tank guided missiles. The Pakistan Army is specifically looking to enhance its close-air support capability for counter-insurgency operations as well as anti-tank warfare.

A geopolitical revolution is currently underway in south Asia. With diplomatic relations between the US and Pakistan souring in recent months, Islamabad is inching closer to Beijing. Ties between the two neighbours are set to become even stronger if the multibillion-euro "China Pakistan Economic Corridor" goes ahead as planned. But who stands to benefit the most? Our correspondents in Pakistan report.

US President Donald Trump’s criticism of Islamabad for America’s military failure in Afghanistan has ruffled Pakistan’s feathers. The country’s top civil leadership and military commanders snubbed Trump’s allegations with one voice amid street protests against the American leader in different towns and cities of the country.

The blistering reaction from Pakistan has apparently prompted the American officialdom to pacify the frayed tempers. The Trump administration is learnt to have approached Pakistan to allay concerns and convey a possible change in policy. “The two countries are expected to engage at a top level to talk out the contentious points,” a source told Daily Express.

US Ambassador in Islamabad David Hale has swung into action for damage control exercise. He met National Security Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua on Thursday to clarify that that President Donald Trump had not blamed Pakistan for the failure in Afghanistan.

He also attempted to assuage rampant fears in the Pakistani officialdom on an enhanced role that Trump’s new strategy envisages for India in Afghanistan. Lt Gen (retd) Janjua told the US envoy that creation of competitiveness in a campaign and alliance is counter-productive. “We should not go that way,” he cautioned.

Highly credible sources told Daily Express that the US administration has started poring over how to tweak the Afghan policy in order to pacify resentment in Pakistan and address the country’s objections. And the same has been conveyed to Islamabad through diplomatic channels.

Two key global players China and Russia have already rejected Trump’s strategy for Afghanistan and beyond and opposed the American move to pile up pressure on Islamabad. Pakistani officialdom is clear that the country can bank upon Beijing and Moscow instead of Washington.

Trump’s policy has clearly divided the stakeholders in two blocs – one comprising Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran; and the other comprising the United States and India. More countries are expected to join the first alliance, according to sources.

Officials at the Foreign Office say Pakistan is convinced that Trump’s new strategy has failed to garner support in the international community.

For a start, this won’t be the first time America has threatened to cut aid to Pakistan. In fact, there are at least two occasions in the past when it actually did but that failed to alter Islamabad’s behaviour.

American aid first picked up in the mid-1950s, after Pakistan joined US-led military alliances, touching $3 billion in 1963 and then fell to virtually zero in 1980, in the wake of American concerns about Islamabad’s nuclear weapons programme. However, Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions did not change and this was, therefore, the first time an aid cut didn’t work.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed everything and US aid was restored. It was virtually one billion right through the ’80s. But in the 1990s, after the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan and George Bush the elder’s refusal to certify Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons, American aid collapsed. But, again, Pakistani behaviour was unaffected.

Once again, 9/11 altered everything. Since then Pakistan has received more than $30 billion. But are things likely to be different this time?

No and for one simple reason. America’s Afghanistan involvement reinforces US dependence on Pakistan for its supply lines. As American troop levels in Afghanistan surge Pakistan’s leverage over Washington will simultaneously grow. In these circumstances it’s hard to see Trump cut US aid.

However, for argument’s sake, let’s suppose Trump is determined to act. In that event how much will a reduction in US aid affect Pakistan? Last year remittances from Pakistani expatriate workers totalled $19.8 billion. In comparison, the well-informed Congressional Research Service estimates that US aid amounted to $1.098 billion.

No wonder Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, responded dismissively to the possibility that Trump could cut financial support. “We are not looking for any material or financial assistance from the USA,” he said. Indeed, it’s quite possible his country could carry on comfortably without it.

The same is also increasingly true of the arms and weaponry Pakistan acquires from America. No doubt the United States has supplied F16 fighter planes, P3 Orion aircraft and AH-IF Cobra helicopters but, increasingly, a preponderant proportion of Pakistani arms are Chinese made. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute believes that nearly 70% of its military supplies between 2012 and 2016 came from China. Once again, US leverage has diminished.

America, of course, has enormous kinetic power which it could unleash. Washington could directly target jihadi bases by using its drones or, even, some repeat of the strategy to take out Osama bin Laden. But this would infuriate the Pakistani army and inflame public opinion. That’s why it’s unlikely to happen while US involvement in Afghanistan is dependent upon Pakistani supply-lines.

Finally, Trump had nothing specific to say about Pakistani terror groups, like the Lashkar and Jaish, which target India. At best, they were covered generically. If he is serious about reforming this prodigal ally we should also question his silence on this front.

The top diplomats from China and Pakistan took swipes at President Donald Trump's newly unveiled Afghanistan policy on Friday as they called for new talks with the Taliban to resolve the 16-year conflict.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing stood firmly behind its "ironclad friend" Pakistan, even though "some countries" did not give Islamabad the credit it deserved in fighting terrorism, a pointed reference to the U.S.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif's first trip abroad to Beijing this week appeared to highlight how ties between the two all-weather allies have grown even closer while Pakistan's critical relationship with the U.S. is disintegrating amid mutual recriminations and distrust.

Wang and Asif announced that China, Pakistan and Afghanistan will hold a new series of three-way talks later this year in China to push forward settlement negotiations with the Taliban while the U.S. doubles down on its military campaign.

Trump infuriated Pakistan last month when he accused Islamabad of providing extremists safe haven and threatened to withhold military aid. He further raised alarms in Pakistan when he raised the prospect of recruiting archrival India into the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said this week that $225 million in military aid for Pakistan have been suspended while about 3,500 additional troops will head to Afghanistan to reverse the Taliban's battleground advances and gain leverage in negotiations.

"It's our firm view that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, the focus should be on a politically negotiated settlement," Asif told reporters in Beijing. "China is playing a very constructive role in this regard."

Pakistan has repeatedly rejected U.S. accusations that it is abetting groups like the Taliban-linked Haqqani Network, a position that China has backed.

"The government and people of Pakistan have made huge sacrifices in the fight against terror for everyone to see and the international community should recognize that," Wang said.

The two ministers presented a closely unified front just days after China handed Pakistan an unexpected diplomatic setback at the BRICS economic summit in Xiamen. On Monday, China joined several nations to declare the Pakistan-based militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as terrorist organizations, in a move that was praised by India and the U.S.

Asif did not address the terror designation on Friday but was quoted by Pakistani media before arriving in Beijing as saying that it should not jeopardize bilateral ties. Rather, Pakistan should put its "house in order," he said.

In the epilogue "Unintended Consequences" of "Charlie Wilson's War" on page 522, the author George Crile explains the emergence of the Taliban and Osama bi Laden as follows:

" By the end of 1993, the six-year-old Cross Border Humanitarian Aid Program--the one sustained U.S. effort to create an infrastructure and blueprint or the rebuilding of Afghanistan---was cut off....There were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country--and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players."

Trump administration accuses country of housing militants as relations hit new low

https://www.ft.com/content/6a107732-99f9-11e7-b83c-9588e51488a0

The Trump administration is considering dropping Pakistan as an ally as it examines tough measures to quell more than 20 terrorist groups it says are based in the country.

Officials familiar with the Pakistan prong of Washington’s new “AfPak” strategy — which involves an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan and praise for India — say it has yet to be fleshed out. But they have plenty of levers.

President Donald Trump last month promised to get tough on Pakistan, accusing it of “housing the very terrorists that we are fighting”. It was the most public breach yet in an often rocky relationship.

“No US president has come out on American national television and said such things about Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the US.

“US policymakers are at the end of their tethers about what they see as Pakistan not helping them while promising to help them.”

The administration has already put $255m in military aid on hold after Mr Trump announced the policy shift. It is eyeing an escalating series of threats, which include cutting some civilian aid, conducting unilateral drone strikes on Pakistani soil and imposing travel bans on suspect officers of the ISI, the country’s intelligence agency. It could also revoke Pakistan’s status as a major non-Nato ally or designate it a state sponsor of terrorism.

The latter options would limit weapons sales and probably affect billions of dollars in IMF and World Bank loans, along with access to global finance.

“Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” Lisa Curtis, former CIA analyst who now leads South Asia policy in the National Security Council, wrote in a joint report with Mr Haqqani earlier this year.

Ms Curtis, who works closely with the state department, believes the Obama administration “erred” by relying on personal ties and aid packages to try to change Pakistan’s behaviour.

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Relations are expected to take a further blow from US efforts to forge closer ties with rival India. “We need to respect and trust India — they have not leaked nuclear secrets or shared sensitive nuclear technology with rogue countries,” said Tim Roemer, former US ambassador to India, a reference to Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation.

Pakistan prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said this week it is “unfair” to blame his country for troubles in Afghanistan, adding that the US should have greater respect for its efforts to combat militancy.

Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11, says Pakistan resents the wild oscillations in support from the US.

“They went from our most allied of allies to our most sanctioned of sanctioned,” he said, recalling that the US worked with Pakistan to defeat Soviet Russia during the 1980s Afghanistan invasion but, once it had won, cut aid and imposed sanctions over its emergent nuclear programme.

“Their narrative about us is here today, gone tomorrow and it has deeply affected their strategic thinking.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Office said on Saturday that the country needs no financial assistance from the US, which it accuses of ignoring Pakistan’s effective operations in the war on terror.“We do not need any financial assistance from the United States. We do not care about it. If America wants to stop it, we will loudly say go ahead,” Dr. Mohammad Faisal, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Office, told Arab News in an interview.“Pakistan receives a paltry amount in terms of Coalition Support Fund from the US, and if the Trump administration withholds it, it will hardly make any difference to a country of 207 million people,” he said.The Coalition Support Fund is a reimbursement to Pakistan from the US of expenses incurred in operations against militants and compensation for logistical facilities made available to the coalition forces operating in Afghanistan.As relations between the US and Pakistan have soured in recent months, the Trump administration, according to a New York Times report, is contemplating withholding $255 million in aid to Pakistan as “a show of dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s broader intransigence toward confronting the terrorist networks that operate there.”“We will insist that Pakistan take decisive action against militant and terrorist groups operating from its soil,” the US said in its National Security Strategy announced by President Donald Trump on Dec. 18.“The United States continues to face threats from transnational terrorists and militants operating from within Pakistan,” it said. “We will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials.”Dr. Mohammad Faisal, however, vehemently rejects the US allegations, saying that Pakistan’s security forces have undertaken indiscriminate and effective operations against terrorism and extremism in recent years.“Pakistan is a more stable, peaceful and secure country after these operations,” he said. “We have repeatedly informed the US that no organized structure of any terrorist outfit exists in Pakistan.”He advised the US to focus on factors responsible for exponential increase in drug production, expansion of ungoverned spaces, breakdown of governance and letting Daesh gain a foothold in Afghanistan instead of pressuring Pakistan to do more.“We remain committed to protect our sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interest determined by the people of Pakistan,” he said.Relations between Pakistan and the US soured after President Donald Trump accused the country of providing a “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror” while launching the US strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia on Aug. 21.Air Marshal (retd) Shahid Latif told Arab News that the US has been blaming Pakistan for its failure in the war against terror in Afghanistan and is threatening Pakistan with dire consequences — action that is unbecoming of an ally such as the US.“We will do no more to support the United States in our region,” he said while fully endorsing Pakistan’s attitude toward the US.“The Trump administration has been threatening Pakistan instead of acknowledging our tremendous sacrifices in the war against terror and this is totally unacceptable to us,” he said.Ayaz Wazir, a former diplomat, told Arab News that Pakistan is a sovereign country and the Trump administration cannot cow it down through threats of unilateral actions against militants and stopping of financial aid.“The US has totally failed in restoring law and order in Afghanistan and it wants to make Pakistan a scapegoat by accusing it of harboring militants on its soil,” he said. “Around 22 terrorist outfits including Daesh are still active in Afghanistan despite the presence of the US troops since 2001.”

Kabul under siege while America's longest war rages onIn 16 years, the Afghan War has cost 2,400 American lives and $1 trillion. But with the country's capital under siege, the end still seems far away

The war in Afghanistan is the longest in U.S. history. It's lasted over 16 years and in that time, America's goals and strategies have changed. Now there's another new plan. President Trump has sent 3,000 more troops to train and assist the Afghan army. But in the Afghan capital you don't have to go far to see the problems. Kabul is so dangerous, American diplomats and soldiers are not allowed to use the roads. They can't just drive two miles from the airport to U.S. headquarters. They have to fly. After all these years, a trillion dollars, and 2,400 American lives -- Kabul is under siege.

This is rush hour at Kabul International Airport -- a swarm of helicopters that's earned the nickname 'Embassy Air.' It's how Americans and their allies working at the U.S. Embassy and military headquarters travel back and forth from the airport. It's just a five-minute flight. The chopper we boarded was making its tenth trip of the day.

A few years ago American convoys regularly drove on the airport road below. Now the view from the helicopter window is all most on board will see of Kabul. They'll stay behind blast walls for the rest of their time in Afghanistan. We wanted to know what it says about where we are in this war if American troops can't drive two miles down a road in Kabul.

John Nicholson: It's a country at war. And it's a capital that is under attack by a determined enemy.

No U.S. General has spent more time here than John Nicholson -- the commander of American forces in Afghanistan.

John Nicholson: We do everything possible to protect our forces. So…

Lara Logan: You're not using the roads.

John Nicholson: Protecting the lives of our troops is our number-one priority. If we can fly instead of drive and that offers them a greater degree of safety, then it's the prudent and the right thing to do.

Lara Logan: In military terms, that's called surrendering the terrain.

John Nicholson: I disagree. I think it's answering our moral imperative to protect the lives of our soldiers and civilians. So that's what we do.

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Lara Logan: If you can't secure the capital, how are you going to secure the rest of the country?

Ashraf Ghani: You tell me. Can you prevent the attack on New York? Can you prevent the attack on London?

Lara Logan: We're not talking about one attack. A series of attacks right here on your doorstep, a bomb that blew out the windows in your palace that has turned this city into something of a concrete prison.

After returning from my recent trip to Kabul, many people that I met back home were concerned about Pakistan’s image in Kabul — opportunities for cooperation and the intensity of anti-Pakistan sentiment in Afghanistan. My answer to them was simple. Pakistan, socially and politically, has friends in Kabul and the opportunities for Pakistan are many, if we try.

Here are the facts: in terms of social relations, every day between 2,000 to 3,000 visas are issued from Kabul alone to Pakistan. The numbers of visas issued from the rest of Pakistani consulates are additional, that may vary from 800 to 1,000 as per Pakistani officials. The Afghans who travel on these visas are usually travelling for health and educational reasons. The patients who travel to Pakistan feel more comfortable in Pakistan than any other country. The reasons being obvious, most of them share the same culture, language, religion and most of the times clans and tribes as well. Also that many of them have been frequently travelling to Pakistan for the last many years. Majority of them have their families in Pakistan that either migrated during the Soviet-Afghan war or later during the last decade. These Afghans who come to Pakistan also find Pakistan economically affordable as compared to other countries in the region. It is to be kept in mind that most of the Afghans live in abject poverty and lack basic health facilities. Therefore, Pakistan is the logical and economical option.

Interestingly almost every third person that I met, Dari (Persian spoken in Afghanistan) dominated, Kabul could speak and understand Urdu. Most of the people who could speak Urdu were young Afghans. They had either been educated or had spent considerable time doing jobs in Pakistan. They have good memories attached to the neighbouring country which welcomed and hosted them.

After meeting the young Afghans, I realised that when it comes to Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, higher education is Pakistan’s strength. While Pakistan has itself improved the quality of higher education, it has worked on giving scholarships to Afghan students who want to pursue their academic ambitions. Islamabad is generally multi-linguistic city and multi-ethnic as well. One can find Hazaras, Persian speaking, and Pakhtuns in large numbers in different universities of the capital. This naturally gives the Afghan students a conducive environment to blend in.

Last year the Higher Education Commission announced scholarships to 3,000 Afghan students and a large number of those are females. These young students are the bridges and ambassadors of peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and a huge potential for the future of democracy and peace in Afghanistan. The tapping of this potential needs the Foreign Office’s attention now more than ever.

A lot of Pakistanis are concerned about anti-Pakistan sentiments brewing in Kabul. The concerns are, no doubt, justified and show Pakistan’s concern and urge to improve its relations with the people of Afghanistan. After all, Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees over the decades and expects that the refugees become the ambassadors of goodwill between the two countries when they return to their home country. For that Pakistan too needs consideration on smooth transition of refugees from Pakistani soil to Afghanistan. It doesn’t need to be rough and loaded with blame. That ruins the very spirit with which Pakistan hosted them for decades.

How the #heroin #Narco #trade explains the #US-#UK failure in #Afghanistan. #Washington’s massive military juggernaut has been stopped in its steel tracks by a small pink flower – the opium poppy. #Taliban #Trump #Pakistan

After fighting the longest war in its history, the US stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How could this be possible? How could the world’s sole superpower have battled continuously for more than 16 years – deploying more than 100,000 troops at the conflict’s peak, sacrificing the lives of nearly 2,300 soldiers, spending more than $1tn (£740bn) on its military operations, lavishing a record $100bn more on “nation-building”, helping fund and train an army of 350,000 Afghan allies – and still not be able to pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations? So dismal is the prospect of stability in Afghanistan that, in 2016, the Obama White House cancelled a planned withdrawal of its forces, ordering more than 8,000 troops to remain in the country indefinitely.

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Despite almost continuous combat since the invasion of October 2001, pacification efforts have failed to curtail the Taliban insurgency, largely because the US simply could not control the swelling surplus from the country’s heroin trade. Its opium production surged from around 180 tonnes in 2001 to more than 3,000 tonnes a year after the invasion, and to more than 8,000 by 2007. Every spring, the opium harvest fills the Taliban’s coffers once again, funding wages for a new crop of guerrilla fighters.

At each stage in its tragic, tumultuous history over the past 40 years – the covert war of the 1980s, the civil war of the 90s and its post-2001 occupation – opium has played a central role in shaping the country’s destiny. In one of history’s bitter ironies, Afghanistan’s unique ecology converged with American military technology to transform this remote, landlocked nation into the world’s first true narco-state – a country where illicit drugs dominate the economy, define political choices and determine the fate of foreign interventions.

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The failure of America’s intervention in Afghanistan offers broader insight into the limits to its global power. The persistence of both opium cultivation and the Taliban insurgency suggest the degree to which the policies that Washington has imposed upon Afghanistan since 2001 have reached a dead end. For most people worldwide, economic activity, the production and exchange of goods, is the prime point of contact with their government. When, however, a country’s most significant commodity is illegal, then political loyalties naturally shift to the economic networks that move that product safely and secretly from fields to foreign markets, providing protection, finance and employment at every stage. “The narcotics trade poisons the Afghan financial sector and fuels a growing illicit economy,” John Sopko explained in 2014. “This, in turn, undermines the Afghan state’s legitimacy by stoking corruption, nourishing criminal networks and providing significant financial support to the Taliban and other insurgent groups.”

Taliban fighters, whom US-led forces spent billions of dollars trying to defeat, are now openly active in 70% of Afghanistan, a BBC study has found.

Months of research across the country shows that the Taliban now control or threaten much more territory than when foreign combat troops left in 2014.

The Afghan government played down the report, saying it controls most areas.

But recent attacks claimed by Taliban and Islamic State group militants have killed scores in Kabul and elsewhere.

Afghan officials and US President Donald Trump have responded by ruling out any talks with the Taliban. Last year Mr Trump announced the US military would stay in the country indefinitely.

The BBC research also suggests that IS is more active in Afghanistan than ever before, although it remains far less powerful than the Taliban.

How much territory do the Taliban control?The BBC study shows the Taliban are now in full control of 14 districts (that's 4% of the country) and have an active and open physical presence in a further 263 (66%), significantly higher than previous estimates of Taliban strength.

About 15 million people - half the population - are living in areas that are either controlled by the Taliban or where the Taliban are openly present and regularly mount attacks.

"When I leave home, I'm uncertain whether I will come back alive," said one man, Sardar, in Shindand, a western district that suffers weekly attacks. "Explosions, terror and the Taliban are part of our daily life."

The extent to which the Taliban have pushed beyond their traditional southern stronghold into eastern, western and northern parts of the country is clearly visible from the BBC study.

Areas that have fallen to the Taliban since 2014 include places in Helmand province like Sangin, Musa Qala and Nad-e Ali, which foreign forces fought and died to bring under government control after US-led troops had driven the Taliban from power in 2001. More than 450 British troops died in Helmand between 2001 and 2014.

In the areas defined as having an active and open Taliban presence, the militants conduct frequent attacks against Afghan government positions. These range from large organised group strikes on military bases to sporadic single attacks and ambushes against military convoys and police checkpoints.

"Most of the generals ... say in public, 'There's no military solution to this war,'" Coll says. "This is at best a grinding stalemate. And yet, we prioritize military action at the expense of diplomacy, at the expense of negotiating."

On the current state of the war in Afghanistan

We're in a stalemate. We're in a muddle. We have something like 10,000 troops there, maybe growing a little higher over the next year or so.

There are actually two wars that we're fighting in Afghanistan, I'm not sure most Americans appreciate that. One is a direct combat war against remnants or elements of the Islamic State that have popped up in eastern Afghanistan. There President Obama initiated, and President Trump continued, a return to direct combat in Afghanistan, after previously, at the end of 2014, saying we were done with the war.

The second war is the one that we transitioned to in 2014, which is to advise and assist the Afghan security forces — the Afghan army and police — in their combat against the Taliban, an indigenous Afghan movement that we're all too familiar with after all these years, which controls significant swaths of the Afghan countryside.

So our muddled war policy is that we're directly at war with the Islamic State, but we're not directly at war with the Taliban, except to the extent that we're supporting Afghan forces. But what that means as a practical matter is that we're their air force; we have the planes. So when the Afghan forces need bombs dropped on Taliban positions, that's generally us doing the bombing. The number of bombs that we've been dropping on Afghanistan has increased significantly in 2017 over the year before.

On why Pakistan supports the Taliban

Pakistan's generals seemed to conclude ... that Afghanistan was going to become an ally of India with international backing [and] that they needed to encourage the Taliban support. ...

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What's happened, where we are now, is that there are 25,000, 30,000 Afghan Taliban guerrilla soldiers fighting the war, going in and out of Pakistan, but fighting the war on Afghan ground. Those units include these suicide bomber, truck bomber units that occasionally kill scores of innocent civilians in Kabul, as we've seen over the last couple of weeks, a couple of horrific attacks.

And then inside Pakistan, the effort by the Pakistani Taliban to overthrow their government has really faltered. The Pakistani state has restored security over the last couple of years to a significant degree. Not entirely — I think 500 civilians died in terrorist attacks in Pakistan last year — but [that's] compared to many thousands a few years ago, when the country looked like it might collapse.

When the Bush administration went into Afghanistan right after September 11, in those conversations, they said, well, what are our really important, vital interests that justify this war? And they said there are really two. One is al-Qaida. We've got to disrupt them, got to destroy them. And the other was, we've got to keep Pakistan stable so that its nuclear weapons don't fall into the wrong hands.

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the Obama administration came back to the same question of war aims that had really befuddled the Bush administration. The reviews concluded that there were really only two vital interests in Afghanistan, the kinds of interests that would justify putting young American men and women in harm's way. One was al-Qaida and the other was the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. But in 2009, when these reviews were taking place, neither of those problems really existed in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida had left Afghanistan and was now in Pakistan in a serious way.

And of course, Pakistan's nuclear weapons were across the border. So they talked themselves into fighting a kind of indirect war. Well, we'll go to Afghanistan, we'll fight the Taliban to prevent Afghanistan from collapsing because if it collapsed, al-Qaida would come back. And the general instability of that war might mess up Pakistan and jeopardize the security of its nukes. So it's a very convoluted conclusion. And at the heart of it was President Obama, who really did not want to fight a war against the Taliban.

Some of his generals did. President Obama saw that that was a very long slog, and he didn't see that the U.S. public would support such a war indefinitely. We were in the middle of the recession at that point. So...

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You know who our boss is, President Obama. Who are you (Taliban rep Tayyab Agha)? We don't even know that you know who Mullah Mohammed Omar is or that you have anybody's authority to be doing this. How can you prove to us that you have authority to really negotiate toward an end to the war? And so they work out these secret protocols where he places messages in the Taliban's media system in the name of Mullah Mohammed Omar.

He brings them a proof-of-life video of Bowe Bergdahl, the Army specialist who had been captured by part of the Taliban, the Haqqani network. And even at one point, he brought a letter from Mullah Mohammed Omar addressed to President Obama. It was sort of on Taliban stationery. But it wasn't, you know, very formal stationery. And the gist of the letter was, Mr. President, you know, I've had to take a lot of hard decisions to talk peace. You should take some hard decisions. Let's get this done.

And the negotiations went on for, let's see, three years or so until they reached a point where there was a deal to open a Taliban office in Qatar, which was the step that would proceed what the Americans hoped would be very serious negotiations to end the war and find a settlement. And the whole negotiation over that office was a fiasco. It alienated President Karzai. It blew up and the Taliban walked away from the whole deal.

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In Afghanistan, for some reason, we just don't seem to have the capacity - haven't had the capacity to do that. And I do fear that the Trump administration, which doesn't seem to think the State Department is a very important part of its foreign policy, is pretty much the last administration that's going to take on the really complicated and uncertain challenges of that kind of negotiation.

A: It’s nowhere near as significant as Pakistan thinks it is. It has had a long relationship with the Afghan government, and supported Afghanistan when the government was reconstituted in 2001. It’s soft power — roads, hospitals, some military training. They don’t want to … further provoke the paranoia of ISI. As long as we (the United States) are in there fighting the terrorists, they can free-ride on our military commitment.

Q: Your book shows how officers within the ISI have continued to support the Taliban in Afghanistan, despite numerous deadly attacks within Pakistan and on Pakistanis by branches of the Taliban operating there. What is the motivation?

A: The Pakistani officer class — and they are ultimately the directors of the spy service as well — have a proud nationalistic tradition. There’s a conviction that India is under every pillow, that it’s out to destroy Pakistan. Over the years that (belief) has become a rationale for army influence in Pakistani politics … the whole country has moved to the right as the years have gone by.

The practical reason is that Pakistan feels vulnerable to Afghanistan. They share a long and open border, and the people along the border don’t even recognize its legitimacy. The fear is that without a buffer strategy of political influence, that India will use Afghanistan to destabilize Pakistan.

Q: Islam is the state religion of Pakistan — how does religious faith affect the motives of the ISI?

A: It’s a very diverse officer corps. The junior officers are more pious; the senior officers are ardently nationalist, more nationalist than even 20 years ago, given the violence and pressure they have come under. When you talk nationalism you’re talking about a country that was founded on the basis of Islam. I think Americans have always struggled to figure out how personal faith among Pakistani officers may affect their political judgment. The lazy way is to take them out for a drink. That doesn’t work with these guys.

Q: How do you see Afghanistan’s future unfolding?

A: I’m not a great forecaster, but I don’t think anything is likely to change. The presence of the U.S. military makes it very difficult for the Taliban to win. They don’t have an air force, they don’t have anti-aircraft weapons. They don’t have the amazing technology of the opposition.

The Afghan government is stuck. In 40 percent or more of the country’s rural districts, the Taliban are embedded. They are present in other parts of the country where they don’t have ethnic or religious roots … It’s even more complicated, because now all this violence has created an ethnic polarization in the rest of the country, and there’s a constitutional crisis in Kabul that’s been going on for three-and-a-half years.

Is #Trump handing over #Afghanistan to #Pakistan by #US #Troops withdrawal?. The #Taliban, the strongest force in the country, have not been defeated yet. On the contrary, their control over #Afghan territories has increased manifold in past few years. https://p.dw.com/p/3AVCi?maca=en-Twitter-sharing

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to withdraw nearly 7,000 US troops – roughly half of the American military presence in the country – from Afghanistan.

US media claims that these soldiers could be heading back home within months.

These reports emerged after President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the "Islamic State" militant group had been defeated in Syria and thus the Middle Eastern country no longer required US troops there.

But the Taliban – the strongest militant force in Afghanistan – have not been defeated yet. On the contrary, their control over Afghan territories has increased manifold in the past few years. If this is the case, why must Washington reduce its presence in the war-torn country?

The US has intensified efforts to find a political solution with the Taliban in the past few months, with Zalmay Khalilzad, the US' special representative for Afghanistan, holding several high-profile talks with Taliban leaders in Qatar.

A victory for Pakistan?

These talks are being facilitated by Pakistan, whose prime minister, Imran Khan, maintains that the Islamist group can't be defeated through war.

However, both Kabul and Washington have been skeptical of Islamabad's long-term motives in Afghanistan. Afghan and US officials have repeatedly said that Pakistan backs some factions of the Taliban that destabilize the Afghan government. By doing that, the powerful Pakistani military hopes to minimize Indian influence in Afghanistan and a return of the Taliban in Afghan politics, they say.

Pakistan's military and civil establishment, analysts say, still consider the Taliban an important strategic ally, who they think should be part of the Afghan government after the NATO pullout.

Observers say that the Pakistani military hopes to regain the influence in Kabul it once enjoyed before the United States and its allies toppled the pro-Pakistan Taliban government in 2001.

Pakistan's Afghanistan policy hasn't changed since the US toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, but the Trump administration's stance toward Islamabad has wavered in the past few weeks, experts point out.

The potential US troop reduction would likely to give an upper hand to Islamabad in dictating the future political setup in Afghanistan.

Siegfried O. Wolf from the Brussels-based South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) told DW that he was convinced that several elements within the Pakistani security apparatus still believe that the Taliban could be used as a strategic tool to counter Indian presence in Afghanistan.

'Weakening your own position'

It remains to be seen whether President Trump would actually withdraw 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, but the fact that the US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis – one of the main supporters of a strong US military presence in Afghanistan – is leaving his post in February, 2019, has definitely created more uncertainty around the West's Afghan mission.

"If the US actually goes ahead with the troop reduction plan, it would be a manifestation of Trump's 'America First' policy," Thomas Ruttig, an expert from the Afghan Analysts Network, told DW.

"But at a time with Khalilzad is trying to negotiate with the Taliban, the troop reduction does not make any sense," he added.

"This would weaken the positions of both Washington and Kabul in the middle of peace talks," Ruttig emphasized.

But some experts are of the view that a potential troop withdrawal could be a calculated decision by Trump.

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I am the Founder and President of PakAlumni Worldwide, a global social network for Pakistanis, South Asians and their friends. I also served as Chairman of the NEDians Convention 2007. In addition to being a South Asia watcher, an investor, business consultant and avid follower of the world financial markets, I have more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech industry. I have been on the faculties of Rutgers University and NED Engineering University and cofounded two high-tech startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls. I am a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and I have held senior management positions in hardware and software development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from 8086 to Pentium processors. My experience includes senior roles in marketing, engineering and business management. I was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine for my contribution to 80386 program. I have an MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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